April 20, 2025 • 72 mins
Easter Celebrations and Baptisms at Outreach 419 with Chaplain Heidi Woldhuis
Join Chaplain Heidi Woldhuis from Outreach 419 for a heartfelt Easter celebration. This special service includes a powerful message on faith, sin, guilt, and redemption, underscoring the significance of Jesus' resurrection. Heidi also shares personal stories and scriptural readings from Romans, emphasizing God's love and grace.
The service culminates in the joyful baptism of community members, marking a profound commitment to their faith. Experience the warmth and spiritual upliftment of this Easter gathering as Heidi invites all to embrace the transformative power of Jesus' sacrifice.
00:00 Easter Sunday Celebration at Outreach 419
01:49 Sin
13:35 Guilt
25:49 Death
42:36 New Life
54:34 Baptisms
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Happy Easter friends.
My name is Robert.
I'm with Outreach 419.
If you're looking for a laid back placeto explore your faith and spirituality, we
invite you to come on out to Outreach 419.
We're located in the bustlingmetropolis of Fenwick, Michigan.
235 West Fenwick Road.
My wife Heidi, is an ordained chaplainand she just brings the word with
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passion and heart and we just inviteyou to be part of this community.
So wherever you are today, thank youfor your prayers, your support, and
we look forward to seeing you soon.
These are not sad tears.
This is just a joyful I am.
I'm just happy in my very soul today.
Here is our, uh, what if, forthose of you who don't know,
this book was written by a womanthat when she reached a hundred.
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I made a list of questions just reflectingon life, and I just kind of like to
choose one to read, and I love toopen it and see what's gonna be read.
And I love this one for today.
What if fear has the power to preventme from making decisions that are
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in keeping with what I believe?
And who I am.
That's a good one.
Faith means checking the connectionsand re plugging it in the back, so I
had faith that we would figure it out.
So here we are on Easter withthis wonderful feel good message
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of sin and guilt and death,
because isn't that reallywhy Easter happened?
Hm.
Sin I'm gonna read from you from Romans.
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Christ arrives right ontime to make this happen.
He didn't and doesn'twait for us to get ready.
He presented himself for thissacrificial death when we were
far too weak and rebellious to doanything to get ourselves ready.
and even if we hadn't been so weak, wewouldn't have known what to do anyway.
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We can understand someone dyingfor a person worth dying for.
We can understand how someonegood and noble could aspire us to
selfless sacrifice, but God put hislove on the line for us by offering
his son in sacrificial death.
While we were of no use whatever tohim, now that we are set right with
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God by means of this sacrificialdeath, the consummate blood sacrifice,
there is no longer a question ofbeing at odds with God in any way.
If when we were at our worst, wewere put on friendly terms with God
by the sacrificial death of his son.
Now that we're at our best.
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Just think of how our liveswill expand and deepen by
means of his resurrection life.
Now that we have actually received thisamazing friendship with God, we are
no longer content to simply say it inplotting prose, we sing and shout our
praises to God through Jesus the Messiah.
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And I'm just reading further aheadin Romans and for some reason I
feel I need to read this also.
Verses 20 and 21, same chapter, allthat passing laws against sin did was
produced more lawbreakers but sin didn'tand doesn't have a chance in competition
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with the aggressive forgiveness that wecall grace when it's sin versus grace.
Grace wins hands down.
All sin can do is threaten us withdeath, and that's the end of it.
Grace, because God is puttingeverything together again through
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the Messiah, invites us into life.
A life that goes on and on and on.
World without end.
Sin is Satan.
It came into the world in the garden,and we talked about that before.
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You know, in the form of aserpent and tempting eve.
You know the old, youwanna be wise, right?
You wanna know it all right?
Why would God keep that from you?
Why doesn't he want you to be like him?
Don't you wanna know it all?
Everything from good to evil.
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And it's hard to know thatwe human beings wanted that.
We didn't want onlythat knowledge of good.
I can't even imagine how beautifullife was when all that is known as
good and true and honest and godly.
But we chose instead that we wantedto have the knowledge of sin also.
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And we continue to dothat today in the sin.
We desire it, we've, it'spretty, it's shiny, it's fun.
We're having a good time.
That's not God.
It's the fall.
Adam and Eve made adecision and it affected.
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Everything that was to come.
It wasn't just humanity that died.
The world itself, this beautifulcreation of God itself began to die.
Everything is dying all around us,and I start now to think of that when
I look at the world and I take it allin that even the most beautiful things
that I see I went to out west in these.
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Gorgeous mountain ranges like hikingup in them where you see nobody else
and it seems like it's never beentouched by another human being before.
But what formed that
I start to take those things in andthen me and my nerdy brain, I'm like,
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what makes up all the layers there?
Like just take the Grand Canyon.
So I took a deep dive into that.
Death caused that death and dying.
Destruction.
Destruction caused this unbelievablebeauty that we often travel to go see,
but I don't think we see it that way.
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The earth wasn't createdto look like it does now.
That came through destruction andunbelievable death because of that.
Because of that.
I don't know why God chose tolove us so much and just didn't
wipe it all clean and start over.
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I think most of us, humanly speakingwould say, I'm not putting up with it.
Like over and over.
I told them, I told them I created them, Igave them everything and it wasn't enough.
But even in then, there was alove I. All love that said, even
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this I'm going to make right,but there's gonna be suffering.
That's just part of the penalty.
God's love doesn't mean we're notgonna live a life free of hurt
and pain and loss and suffering.
And often, in fact, when you'refull in that life, it sometimes
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feels like more of it comes at you.
And we often fall because of that,because we assume, God, I'm your girl.
I'm all in ready for this.
This life's going to be great.
And then poof, you get flattenedone thing after another.
And you're like, but why?
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Why?
You know you called me.
I said, yes.
And he's like, just keep your eyes on me.
Keep your eyes on me.
I didn't take you out of this world.
You're living in this worldand everything here is affected
by the fall in this and this.
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We're incapable of not being sin.
It's who we are.
It's why we're here today.
I talk with many of you, and I saythis all the time and I know the
suffering so many people have in lifebecause of wrongs done in the past,
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maybe currently struggles that theyhave suffering of all kinds, and
I know who the father of that is.
I don't hate a single person forthe actions that they have taken,
but I certainly hate the one who isthe author of that, the one who came
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into the world and held up this andsaid, you wanna be like, God, right?
I got it's right here.
Just take it.
So every time we turn around,he is there offering us.
Do you want it?
Do you want it?
Do you want it?
Put alcohol in front of me andboy did I want it and I took it.
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A lot of us had others, drugs,alcohol, put in any addiction.
I don't care what it is, becauseit's not just drugs and alcohol.
Think of anything you've ever done wrong.
There's no time to dothat because it's endless.
The list will go on forever.
We continually choose that shinything that he's holding out.
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And I've started to think of it that way.
Like, why do I keep wanting totake and eating what he gave me?
Why do we do that?
What is in it?
It's that nature that we have ofsin that could leave us crushed.
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But I love.
How the Bible just so addressesthat over and over and over.
It doesn't matter where you're at.
It doesn't matter where you've been.
Doesn't matter what you havechosen to do, any experiences
you have, it doesn't matter.
God is provided the way out.
It's done and it's finished.
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We talked about that on the crosswhen he said those three words.
It is finished.
What does that mean in your life?
Why do we not live like it isn't?
He knew you were gonna continue to sin.
That's not a surprise to him,and he is not up there angry.
He's like, I took care of it.
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It's finished.
It is finished.
That is so firmly plantedin my mind right now.
Like I'll catch myselfsaying that to myself.
As a reminder to get over myselfto let go of what I'm hanging onto.
I have sinned a lot in my life.
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I have failed miserably.
I have gone in shame beforeGod, and he's just there saying,
child, put the shame aside.
It's finished.
We can live our lives inthe, it is finished way.
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Because it is, we don't servea God That went halfway.
He didn't take care of part of it andleave the rest of it for us to finish.
He didn't say, I'll take care ofup to here, but if you sin after
here, man, it's on you, becauseone sin is all it took just one.
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And I don't do the levels of sin here.
One, no matter what it is, putsus all on the same playing field.
Nobody is above or below yoursins aren't greater or lesser.
So often though, I think wecan, as humans say, you know,
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we have a rating scale for sins.
You know, I may have done this,but at least I didn't do this one.
Oh, the people who do thatsin, they're real bad.
No.
God kinda looks at you through thoselenses, like you'd be real bad too.
And in fact, God kinda saysYeah, the same way you judge,
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I'll judge you the same way.
Which is a hard thing to hear.
'cause I have judged people.
And I had to clean that up too.
God,
the fact that he loved us enough toprovide a way out of sin is something
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I often can't even comprehend,and right on the heels of sin.
Ah, the good old guilt.
So when that alcohol was put infront of me and I'm like, yeah,
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I want it, I'm gonna take it.
And I did for like 40 years, kept takingit over and over and over and over.
I can't even imagine if, if I hadto sit and look at a container
holding everything I've consumed.
I, I'm glad that I don't have to see that,but that's just the tip of the iceberg.
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I sinned well before that.
I sinned greatly during I sinned today,and there's guilt that hits home so often.
Guilt happens because we arecreated by our father, God.
Every single human being iscreated by God, which means.
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When we don't do as we're called to,
we're gonna feel guilt becauseinnately we know right and wrong.
Remember, isn't that kind of whatwe wanted way back in the beginning?
The knowledge of good and evil
so we can know it's what tears us apart.
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We may not even know that'swhy, but we are created beings.
God himself breathes into everyhuman being, not just a select few,
and we can't forget that either.
It's why we have to care aboutpeople who don't know him personally.
That's why we need to care becausetheir lives are turmoil because they
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don't even understand that the turmoilis because their physical being knows.
The father,
but guilt.
Read James five.
Make this your common practice.
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Confess your sins to each otherand pray for each other so that you
can live together whole and healed.
The prayers of a person.
Living right with God is somethingpowerful to be reckoned with.
Elijah.
For instance, human just like us.
He prayed hard that it wouldn'train and it didn't, not a drop for
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three and a half years, and then heprayed that it would rain and it did.
The showers came in, everythingstarted growing again.
You're probably going, that'sa weird thing for guilt.
I thought at first too.
'cause again, I struggled with this one.
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I was sure how it was gonna goand God said, no, you don't.
This photo, does it showguilt or does it show prayer?
Hmm.
Yeah, both.
I see both because that shouldbe our natural reaction.
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It's where we should go when we'refeeling that guilt, but even more
so, it's why he says, talk to people.
Be in community and share withthem so they can do this for you.
Why?
Because it's powerful, because it'sdirectly communicating with your father,
the one who can make everything happen.
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The one who can remove this because healready has, remember it is finished.
It is prayer.
We weren't created to be leftin sin and left in our guilt.
This the destruction this does.
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I see it.
I see it.
People that see themselves asso incapable of being redeemed.
People who see themself as so lessthan, so unworthy, so unlovable.
Describing myself right now.
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I stayed away from God for so longbecause of this, because I was very
aware that my life didn't look like itwas supposed to, and I felt so lost.
But over all of that, I was consumedwith guilt and the feelings ate me alive
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and I didn't like to feel that way.
So I chose more sin, which led to moreguilt, which led to more being consumed.
And it grew and it grewand it grew and it grew.
And it doesn't have to be that way.
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Bring it to the one whoalready took care of it.
Bring it to the one that said itis finished, and hand it to him.
Share it with your community.
You are the church, and I willsay this over and over and over.
It is never a building.
It is never a denomination.
It is never a place.
It is us.
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Church is living, breathing humanbeings, and we are to be here for
each other, to carry the burdens.
Bring your sin and bring your guiltto people who care for you and love
you, but above all, love their fatherGod and ask them to pray for you.
Something that frustrates me is whenpeople say, all I can do is pray.
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All you can do?
Yeah, all you can do, you have adirect communication line to God,
but do you take the time to take that in?
Who is God in your life?
Little.
This tiny little thing that youpull out of your pocket when,
oh yeah, life's a little bumpy.
Let's pull God out and we'll say alittle prayer and maybe it'll get better.
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Or is it God?
Who is my life?
Who is my reason for living?
Who is my eternity?
Because when you talk to that Godand you bring your brothers and
your sisters to him, do, do youthink he can't take care of that?
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Do you think that guilt won't lessenand be decreased, but our enemy
knows too that secrecy is the answer.
Keep it quiet.
Don't tell people thatthey're gonna judge you.
They're not gonna wantanything to do with you.
Don't let people know who you really are.
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Sh don't say anything and what happens?
What happens when we do that?
We're destroyed and he knows that.
There should be no shame
in bringing your ugliest parts toyour brothers and sisters, to your
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family in God, you should never feel
that this is the last place youcould tell people who you really are.
I've openly shared with people who I am.
I share my ups and I share a lotof downs because I fail a lot.
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I will never stand up hereand say I'm a minister boy.
I live such a great life.
'cause I'm telling you, I'mno different than any of you.
I have the same struggles.
My calling didn't meanall of them went away.
Oh no, it it got even bigger, in fact.
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'cause sometimes when you stepinto your calling, you're gonna
find yourself called to somethingyou couldn't even imagine doing.
And that's me right now.
I couldn't speak in front of anybodywithout falling apart and crying.
'cause the anxiety and myfear and my nervousness.
Got to me and now I get soexcited to tell you about Jesus.
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And that comes from a heartof radically changed mindsets.
It came from a place where I was consumedby sin, which led to my guilt, and
it took me outta the game completely.
So much so that I was choosing toend my life instead of continuing
on, 'cause I couldn't do it anymore.
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I couldn't do it anymore, but Iwas in isolation surrounded by
people, but completely isolatedbecause I don't talk to people.
I'm not known by anybodybecause I'm so ashamed.
I'm so unworthy.
I'm so guilty.
I'm so wicked.
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I'm so sinful.
I stand in front of you.
A sinful, wicked, immoral, broken humanbeing who is made whole and love by my
father, and he sees me as perfection.
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I talk openly with you because ithelps me carry the burden and the load
because it frees me from thoughts and.
Things in my head
that would put me underwater.
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Guilt is a horrible thing.
It's awful because of theway it destroys and harms.
So bring it to God, bring itto your family, and I'm talking
about your Jesus family.
People that have that heart and area child of God, we're here for it.
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I have heard stories from manypeople over many years that I know
some people would be like, oh, ugh.
And yet when I hear it andI see what God has done.
I tell you this also so manytimes, don't pretty up your ugly.
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Don't polish it up andmake it sound better.
Remember the whole David was an adulterer?
Nope.
David was a rapist and a murderer.
And why do I say that?
Because it makes his story better, becauseit really shows you what God can do.
Making my story prettier to hear.
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Takes away from what God has done inmy life because my story wasn't pretty.
So why would I tell it?
Pretty?
Because isn't that a lie?
It's not easy to share ugly,
but you know who the one is thatplants that idea in your head.
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Don't tell him the ugly
because he knows.
What happens when youshare it with the family?
It doesn't have power over you anymore.
God has provided a way out fromthis because it's necessary
to live a full life in him.
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But what is the result of that sin?
The Bible is very clear about that,
and we deserve this.
We absolutely deserve to diefor what we've chosen to do.
I'm actually gonna read 22 and 23,but now that you found, you don't
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have to listen to sin, tell you whatto do and have discovered the delight
of listening to God telling you.
What a surprise.
A whole healed, put together life rightnow with more and more of life on the way.
Work hard for sin yourwhole life and your pension.
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It's death.
I worked hard for sin for quite a while.
I'm working hard.
To change that in my lifeevery day, but I still sin.
But the cost, what I earnfor that, it's death.
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But God's gift is real life.
It's eternal life deliveredby Jesus our master.
Death is exactly what we all deserve.
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Every human that's ever been onthis planet, every single one.
Every one, even the ones in the Bible thatGod's like, man, after my own heart, all
the people that are held up as these greatsaints, every single one, we deserve this.
This should be our sentence, God,as the judge saying, you knew the
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rules, you understood you had it all.
I gave you perfection.
And you ruined it.
Destroyed it.
And again, there's times Ilook at this world and I look
at people and I see beauty.
I see people as beautiful.
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I see so many beautifulthings in this world.
And then I'm like.
What does it look like without sin ifit's this beautiful now, if my human eyes
now can see that kind of beauty, whichis actually death because that's what
we're living in, can we imagine what it'sgonna be like when death is utterly and
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completely removed from the world and us?
There's things I can't fathom, like Istruggle to find the answers for, so I
can describe this is what it's gonna looklike after you rise, after taking your
last breath and step into eternal life.
I can't tell you that it isbeyond our ability to understand
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something we have never seen.
Our eyes have never seen perfection ever,but we are called to strive for that.
And where we fall shortdeath has to cover.
But if we're so incapable of beingperfect, how do we ever die enough
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to pay for it to be redeemedand to be given eternal life?
Well, we can't.
And again, thank you God,because it was love that says.
But I can,
I will.
I'm going to hear mine.
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I love you.
There is nothing you can do to makeup for anything you have ever done.
You can make amends,you can make apologies.
You can come to God, youcan confess your sins.
You can do all this stuff, butI'm telling you, if you think
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you can earn it, you are wrong.
There is nothing that you have to earnbecause it's impossible for you too,
because we are sinful human people.
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So the one who created us, the one whogave us perfection to live in, the one who
provided everything we could ever want orneed, saw us say, Nope, not good enough.
I'm gonna take that
and would destroyed it.
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That same God says, I'm goingto give you what's most precious
to me because of your choice.
How many of us would do that?
How many of us would say tosomebody, let's go real bad.
Somebody slaughters your family.
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You're the last one there.
How many of you would say, I'm going togive you the last that I have left and I'm
going to die for you because I love you.
Who would do that?
I wouldn't.
I would not do that.
But God did willingly.
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He didn't sit and thinkabout it like, oh boy.
Oh, cross.
That's not gonna be fun.
Oh,
oh, oh a baby.
I gotta be a baby, like a baby.
I have to be a baby.
I have to learn how towalk and talk and crawl.
Somebody's gonna have to change my pants.
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Somebody's gonna have toteach me how to do everything.
Hmm.
And then I'm gonna live a hardlife, and people are gonna
sometimes like me and often hate me.
And then they're gonna really hate me.
And then I'm gonna be brutalized.
Then I'm gonna be crucified, whichis the most barbaric way you can die.
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Not even gonna get into that because it.
I wanna vomit when youliterally know the process.
But that wasn't the worst of it.
It seems like it'd be the worst ofit, but it wasn't because for three
hours on that cross, the one who lovesus that much, you wanna talk about
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death suffered and experienced helllike the hell that we all need to pay.
An eternity of it.
Now, how think of, um,
I don't even know how to put this inwords, but sometimes you know how things
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condensed become even more powerful.
Think of, think of a flavor.
You know, like a little bit goes along ways, and then you concentrate
it and take a taste of it.
How much more do you taste that flavor?
God poured that out on his son, Hell.
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Not over an eternity, but heexperienced it all in three hours
because that was thecost of eternity for us.
It had to be him.
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There is no human on this planetthat could have withstood what
our Jesus was called to do.
And Jesus didn't resist it.
He didn't fight it.
He didn't say, do I haveto for these people?
Have you seen them likeGod, look at the 12.
You had me call for heaven's sakes.
That's a great example of a hot mess.
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I mean, look at 'em, you know.
Herding cats comes to mind.
I mean, it was all these questions andthey had all this time sitting at the feet
of Jesus himself and they didn't get it.
Like I just, like, I get, sometimes youdon't even get exasperated with our kids.
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Like, how many times do I have to tellyou, oh, maybe a thousand more times.
You know?
But Jesus endlessly in hislove is like, but I want those.
Those are the ones I want and called them.
He didn't go to thereligious institutions.
He didn't take the mosteducated and the most learned.
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He didn't take the ones thatgot up every week and told
everybody how to do religion.
Because Jesus came and hewas a radical rule breaker.
Jesus came and he didn't do anythingthe way it's supposed to be done.
I wonder today how many of us, ifJesus were to pop into this world
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and start walking around and we'dstart hearing about it on the news.
You know, we got technology and socialmedia, so it's spread like wildfire.
But how many of us would look athim in the way he did life and
go, that's not how you do it.
What?
What are you doing with them?
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But the them isn't that us?
I love who he sat with and who he soughtout in the Bible because it was me.
He would've come to find me.
He would've sat with me, said,come here, let me listen.
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Let me just love you.
Let me share with you who I am.
He is the one that said that death
that's required from you.
Let me do that for you.
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Let me do that.
And those three words on thecross, again, it is finished.
Did that for you.
Did it for every single one of you inits entirety, do we live life that way?
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Do we live like it's finished?
Do we live life knowing whatGod sees when he looks at us?
Because I could go one by one throughhere and I'll tell you what God sees.
I love you, daughter.
I love you, son.
You're beautiful and you're precious.
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We're joint tears with Jesus.
Think about that.
What has been given to Jesus?
Everything he's exalted.
Do you understand that we willbe exalted above the angels.
That's how much we mattered to ourfather God, that he would sacrifice
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himself and in unimaginable ways.
We think about the cross all thetime, and yes, it's horrible.
It is horrible, barbaric, but don't forgetthat it was hell that was far worse.
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I don't think as Jesus approachedthat cross that it was the cross that
he was focused on, but that battleahead was hell itself, and I would
imagine some spikes in your hands andfeet are pale in comparison to hell.
How much more anguish and pain couldbe placed on a human body, and the
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only way of holding up is becauseyou are God also at the same time.
So our Father, God capable of all things,everything under his control, the entire
universe, his everything at his command.
Took a human body and felt every singlebit of it, all of it in the way we do.
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And I don't understand lovelike that because I'm incapable
of loving people like that,
but not my God,
not my God.
This day,
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but now in a single victoriousstroke of life, all three
sin, guilt, death are gone.
The gift of our master.
Jesus Christ.
Thank God.
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All three, sin, guilt, death.
Remember those words?
It is finished.
Those are finished sinand guilt and death.
So how are we living now?
Do we live this?
Thank God in outright joy of theknowledge of what you have been given.
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Because those three things sin,guilt, and death, and the effect
they have on your life are no more.
They aren't.
And we say, but you are gettingolder and you're gonna die.
And I'll say, yes, yes.
I'm going to humanly on this earth, thisbroken, sinful, disgusting, broken shell.
(40:32):
Yep.
This is gonna die.
I was reading, Paul was describing theresurrection body because people wanted
to know what that's like, and he goes, howdo you describe something indescribable?
And he said, like this, if you takea seed, you can see that seed and
(40:53):
you plant it down into the ground.
But does that seed look likewhat the life is gonna look like?
If you saw a tomato seed, would youlook at that seed and could you envision
a whole tomato plant just lookingat a seed, not knowing what it is?
We can't, and that's how Paul describedthe resurrection body we're gonna have.
(41:16):
It's in unimaginable.
We can't even fathom.
We see this.
And that's just the seed that'sgetting planted into the ground.
So what is your life gonnalook like when it's brought up?
I can't wait.
(41:37):
I cannot wait.
I cannot wait to see perfectionin the way God meant it to be.
I can't wait to experience thatwith him in the rest of my family.
I can't wait to find all these amazingpeople and say, let me talk to you.
You know it's gonna be this.
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I don't have words, but I getso excited because Jesus made
that excitement possible.
It is finished.
(42:21):
Let go of sin and guilt and death.
Don't hang on to those, but hangonto that life that he gave you.
My goodness.
I just get so excited.
Oh, that new life.
(42:47):
Romans six, when death becomes life.
So what do we do?
Do we keep on sinning soGod can keep forgiving?
Well should hope not.
If we left the country where sinis sovereign, how can we still
live in our old house there?
Or didn't you realize we packedup and left there for good?
(43:10):
That is what happened in baptism.
When we went under the water, weleft the old country of sin behind.
When we came up out of the water,we entered into the new country of
grace, a new life in a new land.
That's what baptism intothe life of Jesus means.
(43:32):
When we are lowered into the water,it is like the burial of Jesus.
When we are raised up out of the water,it's like the resurrection of Jesus.
Each of us is raised into a lightfilled world by our father, so that
we can see where we're going inour new grace sovereign country.
(44:01):
Ah,
new.
Life.
You don't have to wait for heaven toexperience radical change and joy.
You can experience that as soon asyou say, Jesus, I want you and I want
more, and it's just that easy to do.
(44:22):
It's just that easy.
Baptism doesn't in andof itself, save you.
Baptism is just a sign.
Jesus himself chose to be baptizedafter Jesus rose from the dead.
The new covenant established withus was his spirit dwelling in us.
(44:46):
The reason for it is thatlaw was no longer over us.
Prior to anything that Jesusdid, you lived under a law.
All those rules, you had to keep 'em.
You had to check the boxes and trustme, living back there, they're in there.
There's a lot of 'em.
I don't know how you remembered them all.
There was a law for everything,but it's how life had to be.
(45:10):
Jesus,
he covered it.
He covered all of it and justsaid, I will give you my spirit,
and the new law is love God.
And love everyone youmeet the way I love you.
(45:33):
That means we don't need to live underlaw because when you love people,
you will not cause harm to them thatthe law used to tell us not to do.
You are gonna know not to murder people.
You are gonna know not tolie and cheat and steal and
covet and envy and be immoral.
(45:53):
None of it.
We don't need the law.
It's not saying there's no use forit, but I'm saying we're not under
the old law like that anymore.
We are under the new, andwith the spirit now in us,
(46:13):
we're free, free.
Every once in a while I'moverwhelmed by a feeling of freedom.
It's when I can look at my past and I justsmile because it makes today really good.
(46:35):
Because I get excited to share.
It's like, can I justtell you who I used to be?
'cause wow,
if it can happen to me,it can happen to you.
And it's really, really easy.
Just believe.
Just say, God, thank you.
(46:56):
I want more.
Really, that's it.
And that baptism.
That's why I'm so excited to dothis today, because without today,
baptism, there'd be no point.
It is just saying yes, God, yes.
I want what you gave me.
I am taking it as mine.
(47:18):
I want to be your daughter,and I want to be your son.
I wanna be your daughter.
It's all you need to do.
You don't have to clean up, you know,like I said, sharing your story.
(47:38):
You don't have to cleanup before you come to God.
You don't have to have itall right now figured out.
And it's why I don't make you sit throughclasses here, because I know my God and I
know what he's capable of in his spirit.
He just asked you for a sinceredesire to follow him and to know more.
He didn't say, once you knoweverything, then you can come.
(48:04):
And that saddens me that somepeople feel like they need to
know more before they can come.
You don't.
You don't.
The one on the cross next toJesus, didn't know him at all.
Didn't live a day of his life following.
Jesus, didn't love him even once ever.
(48:26):
He did nothing to deservewhat Jesus gave him.
Nothing in.
What did Jesus give him as he'sdying, both Jesus and the one
next to him, two dying men.
But one is also God and as this otherone is dying on the cross, having
never done anything to earn a bitof it, didn't do any of it right?
(48:49):
Never attended church, didn't goto catechism, didn't do any of it.
Jesus says, I love you and I forgiveyou, and today you're going to heaven.
Can you imagine what that meantto that man in that moment?
It is in the Bible, so weunderstand that we don't earn it.
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It is given.
We just have to say yes.
But once you say yes, you needto have it be real in your life.
You need to live it.
We've been given everything, everything.
Where is the joy?
(49:35):
Do you get excited thinkingabout it because you should.
You really should.
I can get excited andjoyful on my worst day.
'cause man, I know who my dad is.
He is awesome and I want you to know him.
(49:59):
I want you to know Jesus as he truly is.
Love and acceptance andforgiveness and grace and mercy.
He is everything that we arenot he ising that I am not.
(50:22):
He's my everything.
The reason for the decisionsI make and for what I do.
I was not prepared for the joy thatcomes with that, and it overwhelms me.
(50:48):
It's why I pray over this place andeverybody that comes here so often,
Friday nights when it's filled, I'm justpraying that the spirit is present, that
people are found in their brokenness.
That in their hurt and their pain andtheir loss and their grief and their shame
and their guilt and their addictions andanger and frustrations and loneliness
(51:11):
and depression, that all of it's removed.
It just filled with you.
God,
it's my prayer for all of you today.
Whatever you came in that'sheavy and burdens you, I pray
over you that it's left here.
That you leave here feeling solight and yet so full of light and
(51:34):
love knowing how precious you are,
because Easter
made it possible.
The penalty was the cross.
(51:55):
And he paid that.
We deserve death.
And it's why he stayedthree days in a grave.
He was really dead.
The body was dead.
He didn't just kind of fall asleep.
'cause you know, it'skind of rough up here.
He was dead and he reallydid come out of that grave.
(52:23):
And that requires faith tobelieve that because everything
we believe is hinged on that.
Because if he didn't come out ofthat grave, he didn't defeat death.
And the only reason we aren'theading towards death is
because the grave is empty.
(52:47):
This day means everything to me.
Because it means I'm not gonna die.
It means that when this body drawsits last, I am gonna be filled
with all things heaven.
(53:09):
That means I'm never gonna die.
This body might.
I honestly have absolutelyno fear of dying.
I'm not in a hurry too.
I'm not eagerly praying for it.
They, you know, sometimes we'relike, oh God, things are so bad here.
Hurry up and come right nowand just bring us all up there.
(53:31):
But I'm like, but wait, because there'sso many people that don't know you.
So don't be so quick to say, I wantyou to come right now 'cause I'm
sick of living in this wicked world.
Love people enough to say,God, give me a minute.
'cause there's peoplethat need to know you.
'cause I want all of you there.
And God's big enough for that.
(53:52):
It's why he's patient.
God's so patient.
People just need to know andunderstand that this is real
and not everybody will.
But it doesn't changethat it's real for us.
(54:14):
Oh, thank you, God.
We are going to sing a songnow, and we're gonna transition
into preparing for baptism.
(54:38):
Because he hears and he answers
Matthew three, seven through 12.
When John realized that a lot ofPharisees and Sadducees were showing up
(54:59):
for a baptismal experience because itwas becoming the popular thing to do.
He exploded Broods of snakes.
What do you think you're doingSlithering down here to the river.
Do you think a little water on your snakeskins is going to make any difference?
(55:20):
It's your life that must change.
Not your skin and don't think you canpull rank by claiming Abraham as father.
Being a descendant of Abrahamis neither here nor there.
Descendants of Abraham are a dime a dozen.
What counts as your life?
(55:41):
Is it green in flourishing?
Because if it's Deadwood.
It goes on the fire.
I'm baptizing you here inthe river, turning your old
life in for a kingdom life.
The real action comes next.
The main character in this drama comparedto him I'm a mere stage hand, will
(56:05):
ignite the kingdom life within you, Afire within you, the Holy Spirit within
you, changing you from the inside out.
He's going to clean house, makea clean sweep of your lives.
He'll place everything true inits proper place before God.
(56:27):
Everything false he'll put outwith the trash to be burned.
And in the following verses, itdescribes that Jesus himself went
to John the Baptist, Jesus himself.
The only perfect human to ever walkthe planet was baptized himself, and
(56:50):
it's why we practice baptism now.
Jesus set the example.
Salvation does not come through baptism.
It is simply a sign externally andvisible to those around that says,
I am stepping into a new calling.
I am calling.
On God it to place a claim on my lifeand I am surrendering my life to God.
(57:16):
It symbolizes God saying,child, it's washed away.
It is finished.
That's what it is.
It is a symbol, and I getso excited to do baptism.
So I am glad that we are here today and Iam so thankful that we have individuals.
(57:36):
Choosing baptism.
So my dear girl, if you are ready,it would be my utter privilege
and honor to have you come up,
bring my towel.
You are welcome to andI'll take care of it.
(58:03):
Hello, friend.
Hello.
Hi.
The Fenwick Watermelon Pool.
This is how we do it here, so.
(58:26):
Oh, that's cold.
Amanda, is there anythingthat you would like to share
or say before we baptize you?
What brings you here?
What brought you to this decision?
Um, not really.
I just, um.
It's a, it's a personal thing for me.
(58:47):
For a long time I've been wanting todo this, but everybody in my life was
always really critical of people whoare, you know, have faith, not here.
So, and now I'm with somebody who is verystrong and very encouraging and none that.
Yeah.
Woo hoo.
Yay.
(59:11):
He allows me to explore my faithwithout criticism as it should be.
And, um, there is, so I've been wantingto do this for a really long time.
I just, um, I never, I've never hadthe opportunity and so I surrendered
my life and my soul to God and myheart to God, and I accept him as.
(59:32):
Everything.
Mm, everything.
So what I hear you saying isthat you believe God and you
believe in Jesus as your savior.
Absolutely, yes, Amanda, and I'msorry, it's a little chilly sometimes.
Baptism is chilly.
Amanda, better than ever,
(59:53):
precious daughter of Gad.
Join air with Jesus.
Your confession and your faith iseternal life through Jesus, and it
is my utter privilege to baptizeyou in the name of the Father and
of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
(01:00:13):
Yes.
You.
Oh, it was cold.
I know.
I know.
It.
Ugh.
Welcome to this big, crazy family.
It's amazing.
Yay.
It's a pleasure.
Thank you.
(01:00:34):
Thank you.
Thank you.
Ugh, I'm gonna drip all of, I don't care.
Oh, Doug, say them for me daily.
Perfect.
Thank you.
Thank you.
All right, Nick.
(01:01:00):
Uh, uh, Marley.
Pardon?
Water first.
You can, you can handle it.
You can handle it.
Oh, Marley up.
Come here.
Oh, she, she's trying to go in with you.
You wanna get baptized too.
Marley wanted to get baptized.
There we go.
(01:01:20):
Can she explain us why
We've been talking about it, butI'm not getting much from her.
So, Nick, what puts you in this chairin this watermelon pool here today?
What does this mean to you?
This means the steppinga new path in mm-hmm.
(01:01:43):
My life and.
You know, I've been baptized before,but my heart wasn't fully committed, you
know, and this right here is my, myself,my commitment to God and to come to the
light and, you know, do better in my life.
And, you know, I have, feel like Ihad a calling to do and keep doing
(01:02:06):
what I'm doing with outreach and,you know, and set the example or set
the tone for different people and.
This right here is my,my Path to my new Life.
Thank you, Nick.
Nick, I have seen you grow sincethe first day that I met you.
(01:02:28):
I believe God has a calling on your life.
He's just waiting for you to say,yes, I'm yours, and I'm all in, and
he has greatness waiting for you.
I pray.
Blessings over you.
I pray healing over everythingthat needs to be healed, and I pray
that anything that needs to be leftis washed away with this water.
Amen.
(01:02:48):
When you step out of this, youwill be a new man in, in God.
Do you believe that Jesus lovesyou and died for you and saved
you for sin for all eternity?
Yes, I do.
Nick, it is my honor to baptizeyou in the name of the Father.
And of the son and of the Holy Spirit.
(01:03:11):
Love you.
(01:03:50):
The master pool.
That's bold.
Holy boldness.
Yes.
That's, Robert wantedit and it didn't fit.
That's what that, that.
Carol, I'm only eight minutes fromhere, so I'm okay with having this.
(01:04:13):
Are you okay?
Yep.
All right.
It'll dry and you don't soft completely
There you.
You can get in the watermelon pool.
Oh, there's not even matter in there.
(01:04:33):
I never envisioned baptismshappening in an inflatable watermelon
pool, but my God can do anything.
Anything.
Carol, it is such a joyto me to get to know you.
I love your story.
I love your heart.
I love the beautiful spiritthat God has created in you.
(01:04:57):
Would you like to share?
I would.
Thanks.
Like Nick, I was baptized earlierin life, like the year that I
graduated high school, but it wasn'tuntil four years after high school.
I was such an insecure person thatsomebody invested in me and I,
it's like heaven opened and I knewthat it was him that did the work.
(01:05:19):
Mm-hmm.
Before then, I came from a familythat you'd be socially good.
They sent us to church.
And as a little girl,I, the seed was planted.
I said yes to Jesus.
Mm-hmm.
I couldn't tell you what, how old I was.
Mm-hmm.
But then our parents didn't go tochurch, so we all stopped going.
But in 11th grade I knew somethingwas not right with my life.
(01:05:40):
So, but still I wastrying to do it on my own.
Something was not right.
But then four years after high school,I knew that, I knew that I knew
and it's like heaven opened and so.
I put on, like you said, I buckled up.
Stuff happened and my dad died right away.
My brother three months after, but still.
Um, and then later on in life abump came where I didn't trust God.
(01:06:04):
And so I picked up the familyhabit of drinking and that was
like the biggest shame in my life.
Mm-hmm.
It's like the last thing as aChristian you would do, but uh,
that's where God met me exactly as Iwas and that was another beautiful.
Um, uh, confirmation that he lovesme and he understands me, and he
(01:06:25):
understood my family, who all, um,down that path and passed away.
So, um, I wanted to rededicate and likeI said, I did not know him like I know
him now back when I was first baptized,and this is the second time that I felt
like I really want to do it because.
(01:06:45):
I know that I know now and Iunderstand the real reason behind
it, so, oh, this is beautiful.
Carol, I pray.
I pray blessings over your life.
I pray God answers everyquestion on your mind and in your
searching and in your longing.
He has a beautiful calling onyour life and he loves you.
(01:07:07):
So much precious daughter, doyou believe Jesus loves you?
He died for you, and you havea resurrected eternity of
life with God waiting for you?
Yes,
Carol.
I am honored to re baptize youagain in the name of the Father.
And of the sun and of the Holy Spirit.
(01:07:32):
It's cool.
I know.
Thank you.
Take it down.
Thank you.
You too.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you for being here so much.
I.
My pleasure.
It's my pleasure.
(01:08:12):
I have endless supplies of water.
If anyone, anyone at all, has the desireto be baptized today, there is time
or just talk to me anytime and it willbe my pleasure to make that happen.
So
(01:08:34):
yes, wonderful.
My heart is full.
We're just gonna close with onebrief song and I'm just gonna then
pray a blessing and then we've gotsome fun waiting and some food.
Great kiddos.
Yes, well fun for all.
(01:08:55):
I enjoy watching kiddos having fun.
So
thank you for being here today, everybody.
Thank you.
(01:09:18):
Bless you and keep you
Father,
thank you.
I don't even know what else to say today.
Thank you.
(01:09:39):
I thank you for everyonewho is in this space today.
Father, I'm in the presence of the church.
Your spirit is here, and you are as alivetoday as anything I've ever experienced.
I pray blessings on everybody here.
I pray peace.
I pray healing.
(01:10:01):
Father God, I pray that all heartsare turned to you, that they can
experience and receive the joythat's just right there waiting
for them where healing is needed.
Father, I pray that happens now.
I pray that anything that needsto be left is left and not
(01:10:22):
taken back when they leave here.
I pray blessings over everybody here.
I pray a week lived in serviceto you because that is where all
joy and all goodness is found.
Father, I pray that you bless theremainder of this day, blessed time
that we're gonna spend together.
Let's have some fun.
(01:10:42):
Let's fill our bellies.
And we are so grateful to you that we canbe here today because that tomb is empty.
Thank you for the work that was done.
Thank you.
Above all that it was done becauseyou love us that much in May.
(01:11:05):
We never, ever forget.
That.
That's how you see us.
May we leave here feeling nothingbut loved by you, father God, help
us to walk boldly in the life andcalling that you have before us.
Just thank you in your son's name.
(01:11:27):
Father, I pray, thank you for everything.
Amen.
Amen.
Happy Easter every time.
Happy Easter friends.
My name is Robert.
I'm with Outreach 419.
If you're looking for a laid back placeto explore your faith and spirituality, we
invite you to come on out to Outreach 419.
We're located in the bustlingmetropolis of Fenwick, Michigan.
235 West Fenwick Road.
My wife Heidi, is an ordained chaplainand she just brings the word with
(00:21):
passion and heart and we just inviteyou to be part of this community.
So wherever you are today, thank youfor your prayers, your support, and
we look forward to seeing you soon.
These are not sad tears.
This is just a joyful I am.
I'm just happy in my very soul today.
Here is our, uh, what if, forthose of you who don't know,
this book was written by a womanthat when she reached a hundred.
(00:46):
I made a list of questions just reflectingon life, and I just kind of like to
choose one to read, and I love toopen it and see what's gonna be read.
And I love this one for today.
What if fear has the power to preventme from making decisions that are
(01:07):
in keeping with what I believe?
And who I am.
That's a good one.
Faith means checking the connectionsand re plugging it in the back, so I
had faith that we would figure it out.
So here we are on Easter withthis wonderful feel good message
(01:29):
of sin and guilt and death,
because isn't that reallywhy Easter happened?
Hm.
Sin I'm gonna read from you from Romans.
(01:54):
Christ arrives right ontime to make this happen.
He didn't and doesn'twait for us to get ready.
He presented himself for thissacrificial death when we were
far too weak and rebellious to doanything to get ourselves ready.
and even if we hadn't been so weak, wewouldn't have known what to do anyway.
(02:16):
We can understand someone dyingfor a person worth dying for.
We can understand how someonegood and noble could aspire us to
selfless sacrifice, but God put hislove on the line for us by offering
his son in sacrificial death.
While we were of no use whatever tohim, now that we are set right with
(02:39):
God by means of this sacrificialdeath, the consummate blood sacrifice,
there is no longer a question ofbeing at odds with God in any way.
If when we were at our worst, wewere put on friendly terms with God
by the sacrificial death of his son.
Now that we're at our best.
(03:01):
Just think of how our liveswill expand and deepen by
means of his resurrection life.
Now that we have actually received thisamazing friendship with God, we are
no longer content to simply say it inplotting prose, we sing and shout our
praises to God through Jesus the Messiah.
(03:28):
And I'm just reading further aheadin Romans and for some reason I
feel I need to read this also.
Verses 20 and 21, same chapter, allthat passing laws against sin did was
produced more lawbreakers but sin didn'tand doesn't have a chance in competition
(03:49):
with the aggressive forgiveness that wecall grace when it's sin versus grace.
Grace wins hands down.
All sin can do is threaten us withdeath, and that's the end of it.
Grace, because God is puttingeverything together again through
(04:11):
the Messiah, invites us into life.
A life that goes on and on and on.
World without end.
Sin is Satan.
It came into the world in the garden,and we talked about that before.
(04:33):
You know, in the form of aserpent and tempting eve.
You know the old, youwanna be wise, right?
You wanna know it all right?
Why would God keep that from you?
Why doesn't he want you to be like him?
Don't you wanna know it all?
Everything from good to evil.
(04:56):
And it's hard to know thatwe human beings wanted that.
We didn't want onlythat knowledge of good.
I can't even imagine how beautifullife was when all that is known as
good and true and honest and godly.
But we chose instead that we wantedto have the knowledge of sin also.
(05:26):
And we continue to dothat today in the sin.
We desire it, we've, it'spretty, it's shiny, it's fun.
We're having a good time.
That's not God.
It's the fall.
Adam and Eve made adecision and it affected.
(05:49):
Everything that was to come.
It wasn't just humanity that died.
The world itself, this beautifulcreation of God itself began to die.
Everything is dying all around us,and I start now to think of that when
I look at the world and I take it allin that even the most beautiful things
that I see I went to out west in these.
(06:11):
Gorgeous mountain ranges like hikingup in them where you see nobody else
and it seems like it's never beentouched by another human being before.
But what formed that
I start to take those things in andthen me and my nerdy brain, I'm like,
(06:34):
what makes up all the layers there?
Like just take the Grand Canyon.
So I took a deep dive into that.
Death caused that death and dying.
Destruction.
Destruction caused this unbelievablebeauty that we often travel to go see,
but I don't think we see it that way.
(06:56):
The earth wasn't createdto look like it does now.
That came through destruction andunbelievable death because of that.
Because of that.
I don't know why God chose tolove us so much and just didn't
wipe it all clean and start over.
(07:17):
I think most of us, humanly speakingwould say, I'm not putting up with it.
Like over and over.
I told them, I told them I created them, Igave them everything and it wasn't enough.
But even in then, there was alove I. All love that said, even
(07:40):
this I'm going to make right,but there's gonna be suffering.
That's just part of the penalty.
God's love doesn't mean we're notgonna live a life free of hurt
and pain and loss and suffering.
And often, in fact, when you'refull in that life, it sometimes
(08:00):
feels like more of it comes at you.
And we often fall because of that,because we assume, God, I'm your girl.
I'm all in ready for this.
This life's going to be great.
And then poof, you get flattenedone thing after another.
And you're like, but why?
(08:23):
Why?
You know you called me.
I said, yes.
And he's like, just keep your eyes on me.
Keep your eyes on me.
I didn't take you out of this world.
You're living in this worldand everything here is affected
by the fall in this and this.
(08:45):
We're incapable of not being sin.
It's who we are.
It's why we're here today.
I talk with many of you, and I saythis all the time and I know the
suffering so many people have in lifebecause of wrongs done in the past,
(09:10):
maybe currently struggles that theyhave suffering of all kinds, and
I know who the father of that is.
I don't hate a single person forthe actions that they have taken,
but I certainly hate the one who isthe author of that, the one who came
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into the world and held up this andsaid, you wanna be like, God, right?
I got it's right here.
Just take it.
So every time we turn around,he is there offering us.
Do you want it?
Do you want it?
Do you want it?
Put alcohol in front of me andboy did I want it and I took it.
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A lot of us had others, drugs,alcohol, put in any addiction.
I don't care what it is, becauseit's not just drugs and alcohol.
Think of anything you've ever done wrong.
There's no time to dothat because it's endless.
The list will go on forever.
We continually choose that shinything that he's holding out.
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And I've started to think of it that way.
Like, why do I keep wanting totake and eating what he gave me?
Why do we do that?
What is in it?
It's that nature that we have ofsin that could leave us crushed.
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But I love.
How the Bible just so addressesthat over and over and over.
It doesn't matter where you're at.
It doesn't matter where you've been.
Doesn't matter what you havechosen to do, any experiences
you have, it doesn't matter.
God is provided the way out.
It's done and it's finished.
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We talked about that on the crosswhen he said those three words.
It is finished.
What does that mean in your life?
Why do we not live like it isn't?
He knew you were gonna continue to sin.
That's not a surprise to him,and he is not up there angry.
He's like, I took care of it.
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It's finished.
It is finished.
That is so firmly plantedin my mind right now.
Like I'll catch myselfsaying that to myself.
As a reminder to get over myselfto let go of what I'm hanging onto.
I have sinned a lot in my life.
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I have failed miserably.
I have gone in shame beforeGod, and he's just there saying,
child, put the shame aside.
It's finished.
We can live our lives inthe, it is finished way.
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Because it is, we don't servea God That went halfway.
He didn't take care of part of it andleave the rest of it for us to finish.
He didn't say, I'll take care ofup to here, but if you sin after
here, man, it's on you, becauseone sin is all it took just one.
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And I don't do the levels of sin here.
One, no matter what it is, putsus all on the same playing field.
Nobody is above or below yoursins aren't greater or lesser.
So often though, I think wecan, as humans say, you know,
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we have a rating scale for sins.
You know, I may have done this,but at least I didn't do this one.
Oh, the people who do thatsin, they're real bad.
No.
God kinda looks at you through thoselenses, like you'd be real bad too.
And in fact, God kinda saysYeah, the same way you judge,
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I'll judge you the same way.
Which is a hard thing to hear.
'cause I have judged people.
And I had to clean that up too.
God,
the fact that he loved us enough toprovide a way out of sin is something
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I often can't even comprehend,and right on the heels of sin.
Ah, the good old guilt.
So when that alcohol was put infront of me and I'm like, yeah,
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I want it, I'm gonna take it.
And I did for like 40 years, kept takingit over and over and over and over.
I can't even imagine if, if I hadto sit and look at a container
holding everything I've consumed.
I, I'm glad that I don't have to see that,but that's just the tip of the iceberg.
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I sinned well before that.
I sinned greatly during I sinned today,and there's guilt that hits home so often.
Guilt happens because we arecreated by our father, God.
Every single human being iscreated by God, which means.
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When we don't do as we're called to,
we're gonna feel guilt becauseinnately we know right and wrong.
Remember, isn't that kind of whatwe wanted way back in the beginning?
The knowledge of good and evil
so we can know it's what tears us apart.
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We may not even know that'swhy, but we are created beings.
God himself breathes into everyhuman being, not just a select few,
and we can't forget that either.
It's why we have to care aboutpeople who don't know him personally.
That's why we need to care becausetheir lives are turmoil because they
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don't even understand that the turmoilis because their physical being knows.
The father,
but guilt.
Read James five.
Make this your common practice.
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Confess your sins to each otherand pray for each other so that you
can live together whole and healed.
The prayers of a person.
Living right with God is somethingpowerful to be reckoned with.
Elijah.
For instance, human just like us.
He prayed hard that it wouldn'train and it didn't, not a drop for
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three and a half years, and then heprayed that it would rain and it did.
The showers came in, everythingstarted growing again.
You're probably going, that'sa weird thing for guilt.
I thought at first too.
'cause again, I struggled with this one.
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I was sure how it was gonna goand God said, no, you don't.
This photo, does it showguilt or does it show prayer?
Hmm.
Yeah, both.
I see both because that shouldbe our natural reaction.
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It's where we should go when we'refeeling that guilt, but even more
so, it's why he says, talk to people.
Be in community and share withthem so they can do this for you.
Why?
Because it's powerful, because it'sdirectly communicating with your father,
the one who can make everything happen.
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The one who can remove this because healready has, remember it is finished.
It is prayer.
We weren't created to be leftin sin and left in our guilt.
This the destruction this does.
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I see it.
I see it.
People that see themselves asso incapable of being redeemed.
People who see themself as so lessthan, so unworthy, so unlovable.
Describing myself right now.
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I stayed away from God for so longbecause of this, because I was very
aware that my life didn't look like itwas supposed to, and I felt so lost.
But over all of that, I was consumedwith guilt and the feelings ate me alive
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and I didn't like to feel that way.
So I chose more sin, which led to moreguilt, which led to more being consumed.
And it grew and it grewand it grew and it grew.
And it doesn't have to be that way.
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Bring it to the one whoalready took care of it.
Bring it to the one that said itis finished, and hand it to him.
Share it with your community.
You are the church, and I willsay this over and over and over.
It is never a building.
It is never a denomination.
It is never a place.
It is us.
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Church is living, breathing humanbeings, and we are to be here for
each other, to carry the burdens.
Bring your sin and bring your guiltto people who care for you and love
you, but above all, love their fatherGod and ask them to pray for you.
Something that frustrates me is whenpeople say, all I can do is pray.
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All you can do?
Yeah, all you can do, you have adirect communication line to God,
but do you take the time to take that in?
Who is God in your life?
Little.
This tiny little thing that youpull out of your pocket when,
oh yeah, life's a little bumpy.
Let's pull God out and we'll say alittle prayer and maybe it'll get better.
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Or is it God?
Who is my life?
Who is my reason for living?
Who is my eternity?
Because when you talk to that Godand you bring your brothers and
your sisters to him, do, do youthink he can't take care of that?
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Do you think that guilt won't lessenand be decreased, but our enemy
knows too that secrecy is the answer.
Keep it quiet.
Don't tell people thatthey're gonna judge you.
They're not gonna wantanything to do with you.
Don't let people know who you really are.
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Sh don't say anything and what happens?
What happens when we do that?
We're destroyed and he knows that.
There should be no shame
in bringing your ugliest parts toyour brothers and sisters, to your
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family in God, you should never feel
that this is the last place youcould tell people who you really are.
I've openly shared with people who I am.
I share my ups and I share a lotof downs because I fail a lot.
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I will never stand up hereand say I'm a minister boy.
I live such a great life.
'cause I'm telling you, I'mno different than any of you.
I have the same struggles.
My calling didn't meanall of them went away.
Oh no, it it got even bigger, in fact.
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'cause sometimes when you stepinto your calling, you're gonna
find yourself called to somethingyou couldn't even imagine doing.
And that's me right now.
I couldn't speak in front of anybodywithout falling apart and crying.
'cause the anxiety and myfear and my nervousness.
Got to me and now I get soexcited to tell you about Jesus.
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And that comes from a heartof radically changed mindsets.
It came from a place where I was consumedby sin, which led to my guilt, and
it took me outta the game completely.
So much so that I was choosing toend my life instead of continuing
on, 'cause I couldn't do it anymore.
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I couldn't do it anymore, but Iwas in isolation surrounded by
people, but completely isolatedbecause I don't talk to people.
I'm not known by anybodybecause I'm so ashamed.
I'm so unworthy.
I'm so guilty.
I'm so wicked.
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I'm so sinful.
I stand in front of you.
A sinful, wicked, immoral, broken humanbeing who is made whole and love by my
father, and he sees me as perfection.
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I talk openly with you because ithelps me carry the burden and the load
because it frees me from thoughts and.
Things in my head
that would put me underwater.
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Guilt is a horrible thing.
It's awful because of theway it destroys and harms.
So bring it to God, bring itto your family, and I'm talking
about your Jesus family.
People that have that heart and area child of God, we're here for it.
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I have heard stories from manypeople over many years that I know
some people would be like, oh, ugh.
And yet when I hear it andI see what God has done.
I tell you this also so manytimes, don't pretty up your ugly.
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Don't polish it up andmake it sound better.
Remember the whole David was an adulterer?
Nope.
David was a rapist and a murderer.
And why do I say that?
Because it makes his story better, becauseit really shows you what God can do.
Making my story prettier to hear.
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Takes away from what God has done inmy life because my story wasn't pretty.
So why would I tell it?
Pretty?
Because isn't that a lie?
It's not easy to share ugly,
but you know who the one is thatplants that idea in your head.
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Don't tell him the ugly
because he knows.
What happens when youshare it with the family?
It doesn't have power over you anymore.
God has provided a way out fromthis because it's necessary
to live a full life in him.
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But what is the result of that sin?
The Bible is very clear about that,
and we deserve this.
We absolutely deserve to diefor what we've chosen to do.
I'm actually gonna read 22 and 23,but now that you found, you don't
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have to listen to sin, tell you whatto do and have discovered the delight
of listening to God telling you.
What a surprise.
A whole healed, put together life rightnow with more and more of life on the way.
Work hard for sin yourwhole life and your pension.
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It's death.
I worked hard for sin for quite a while.
I'm working hard.
To change that in my lifeevery day, but I still sin.
But the cost, what I earnfor that, it's death.
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But God's gift is real life.
It's eternal life deliveredby Jesus our master.
Death is exactly what we all deserve.
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Every human that's ever been onthis planet, every single one.
Every one, even the ones in the Bible thatGod's like, man, after my own heart, all
the people that are held up as these greatsaints, every single one, we deserve this.
This should be our sentence, God,as the judge saying, you knew the
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rules, you understood you had it all.
I gave you perfection.
And you ruined it.
Destroyed it.
And again, there's times Ilook at this world and I look
at people and I see beauty.
I see people as beautiful.
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I see so many beautifulthings in this world.
And then I'm like.
What does it look like without sin ifit's this beautiful now, if my human eyes
now can see that kind of beauty, whichis actually death because that's what
we're living in, can we imagine what it'sgonna be like when death is utterly and
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completely removed from the world and us?
There's things I can't fathom, like Istruggle to find the answers for, so I
can describe this is what it's gonna looklike after you rise, after taking your
last breath and step into eternal life.
I can't tell you that it isbeyond our ability to understand
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something we have never seen.
Our eyes have never seen perfection ever,but we are called to strive for that.
And where we fall shortdeath has to cover.
But if we're so incapable of beingperfect, how do we ever die enough
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to pay for it to be redeemedand to be given eternal life?
Well, we can't.
And again, thank you God,because it was love that says.
But I can,
I will.
I'm going to hear mine.
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I love you.
There is nothing you can do to makeup for anything you have ever done.
You can make amends,you can make apologies.
You can come to God, youcan confess your sins.
You can do all this stuff, butI'm telling you, if you think
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you can earn it, you are wrong.
There is nothing that you have to earnbecause it's impossible for you too,
because we are sinful human people.
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So the one who created us, the one whogave us perfection to live in, the one who
provided everything we could ever want orneed, saw us say, Nope, not good enough.
I'm gonna take that
and would destroyed it.
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That same God says, I'm goingto give you what's most precious
to me because of your choice.
How many of us would do that?
How many of us would say tosomebody, let's go real bad.
Somebody slaughters your family.
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You're the last one there.
How many of you would say, I'm going togive you the last that I have left and I'm
going to die for you because I love you.
Who would do that?
I wouldn't.
I would not do that.
But God did willingly.
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He didn't sit and thinkabout it like, oh boy.
Oh, cross.
That's not gonna be fun.
Oh,
oh, oh a baby.
I gotta be a baby, like a baby.
I have to be a baby.
I have to learn how towalk and talk and crawl.
Somebody's gonna have to change my pants.
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Somebody's gonna have toteach me how to do everything.
Hmm.
And then I'm gonna live a hardlife, and people are gonna
sometimes like me and often hate me.
And then they're gonna really hate me.
And then I'm gonna be brutalized.
Then I'm gonna be crucified, whichis the most barbaric way you can die.
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Not even gonna get into that because it.
I wanna vomit when youliterally know the process.
But that wasn't the worst of it.
It seems like it'd be the worst ofit, but it wasn't because for three
hours on that cross, the one who lovesus that much, you wanna talk about
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death suffered and experienced helllike the hell that we all need to pay.
An eternity of it.
Now, how think of, um,
I don't even know how to put this inwords, but sometimes you know how things
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condensed become even more powerful.
Think of, think of a flavor.
You know, like a little bit goes along ways, and then you concentrate
it and take a taste of it.
How much more do you taste that flavor?
God poured that out on his son, Hell.
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Not over an eternity, but heexperienced it all in three hours
because that was thecost of eternity for us.
It had to be him.
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There is no human on this planetthat could have withstood what
our Jesus was called to do.
And Jesus didn't resist it.
He didn't fight it.
He didn't say, do I haveto for these people?
Have you seen them likeGod, look at the 12.
You had me call for heaven's sakes.
That's a great example of a hot mess.
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I mean, look at 'em, you know.
Herding cats comes to mind.
I mean, it was all these questions andthey had all this time sitting at the feet
of Jesus himself and they didn't get it.
Like I just, like, I get, sometimes youdon't even get exasperated with our kids.
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Like, how many times do I have to tellyou, oh, maybe a thousand more times.
You know?
But Jesus endlessly in hislove is like, but I want those.
Those are the ones I want and called them.
He didn't go to thereligious institutions.
He didn't take the mosteducated and the most learned.
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He didn't take the ones thatgot up every week and told
everybody how to do religion.
Because Jesus came and hewas a radical rule breaker.
Jesus came and he didn't do anythingthe way it's supposed to be done.
I wonder today how many of us, ifJesus were to pop into this world
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and start walking around and we'dstart hearing about it on the news.
You know, we got technology and socialmedia, so it's spread like wildfire.
But how many of us would look athim in the way he did life and
go, that's not how you do it.
What?
What are you doing with them?
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But the them isn't that us?
I love who he sat with and who he soughtout in the Bible because it was me.
He would've come to find me.
He would've sat with me, said,come here, let me listen.
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Let me just love you.
Let me share with you who I am.
He is the one that said that death
that's required from you.
Let me do that for you.
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Let me do that.
And those three words on thecross, again, it is finished.
Did that for you.
Did it for every single one of you inits entirety, do we live life that way?
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Do we live like it's finished?
Do we live life knowing whatGod sees when he looks at us?
Because I could go one by one throughhere and I'll tell you what God sees.
I love you, daughter.
I love you, son.
You're beautiful and you're precious.
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We're joint tears with Jesus.
Think about that.
What has been given to Jesus?
Everything he's exalted.
Do you understand that we willbe exalted above the angels.
That's how much we mattered to ourfather God, that he would sacrifice
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himself and in unimaginable ways.
We think about the cross all thetime, and yes, it's horrible.
It is horrible, barbaric, but don't forgetthat it was hell that was far worse.
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I don't think as Jesus approachedthat cross that it was the cross that
he was focused on, but that battleahead was hell itself, and I would
imagine some spikes in your hands andfeet are pale in comparison to hell.
How much more anguish and pain couldbe placed on a human body, and the
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only way of holding up is becauseyou are God also at the same time.
So our Father, God capable of all things,everything under his control, the entire
universe, his everything at his command.
Took a human body and felt every singlebit of it, all of it in the way we do.
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And I don't understand lovelike that because I'm incapable
of loving people like that,
but not my God,
not my God.
This day,
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but now in a single victoriousstroke of life, all three
sin, guilt, death are gone.
The gift of our master.
Jesus Christ.
Thank God.
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All three, sin, guilt, death.
Remember those words?
It is finished.
Those are finished sinand guilt and death.
So how are we living now?
Do we live this?
Thank God in outright joy of theknowledge of what you have been given.
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Because those three things sin,guilt, and death, and the effect
they have on your life are no more.
They aren't.
And we say, but you are gettingolder and you're gonna die.
And I'll say, yes, yes.
I'm going to humanly on this earth, thisbroken, sinful, disgusting, broken shell.
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Yep.
This is gonna die.
I was reading, Paul was describing theresurrection body because people wanted
to know what that's like, and he goes, howdo you describe something indescribable?
And he said, like this, if you takea seed, you can see that seed and
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you plant it down into the ground.
But does that seed look likewhat the life is gonna look like?
If you saw a tomato seed, would youlook at that seed and could you envision
a whole tomato plant just lookingat a seed, not knowing what it is?
We can't, and that's how Paul describedthe resurrection body we're gonna have.
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It's in unimaginable.
We can't even fathom.
We see this.
And that's just the seed that'sgetting planted into the ground.
So what is your life gonnalook like when it's brought up?
I can't wait.
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I cannot wait.
I cannot wait to see perfectionin the way God meant it to be.
I can't wait to experience thatwith him in the rest of my family.
I can't wait to find all these amazingpeople and say, let me talk to you.
You know it's gonna be this.
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I don't have words, but I getso excited because Jesus made
that excitement possible.
It is finished.
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Let go of sin and guilt and death.
Don't hang on to those, but hangonto that life that he gave you.
My goodness.
I just get so excited.
Oh, that new life.
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Romans six, when death becomes life.
So what do we do?
Do we keep on sinning soGod can keep forgiving?
Well should hope not.
If we left the country where sinis sovereign, how can we still
live in our old house there?
Or didn't you realize we packedup and left there for good?
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That is what happened in baptism.
When we went under the water, weleft the old country of sin behind.
When we came up out of the water,we entered into the new country of
grace, a new life in a new land.
That's what baptism intothe life of Jesus means.
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When we are lowered into the water,it is like the burial of Jesus.
When we are raised up out of the water,it's like the resurrection of Jesus.
Each of us is raised into a lightfilled world by our father, so that
we can see where we're going inour new grace sovereign country.
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Ah,
new.
Life.
You don't have to wait for heaven toexperience radical change and joy.
You can experience that as soon asyou say, Jesus, I want you and I want
more, and it's just that easy to do.
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It's just that easy.
Baptism doesn't in andof itself, save you.
Baptism is just a sign.
Jesus himself chose to be baptizedafter Jesus rose from the dead.
The new covenant established withus was his spirit dwelling in us.
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The reason for it is thatlaw was no longer over us.
Prior to anything that Jesusdid, you lived under a law.
All those rules, you had to keep 'em.
You had to check the boxes and trustme, living back there, they're in there.
There's a lot of 'em.
I don't know how you remembered them all.
There was a law for everything,but it's how life had to be.
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Jesus,
he covered it.
He covered all of it and justsaid, I will give you my spirit,
and the new law is love God.
And love everyone youmeet the way I love you.
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That means we don't need to live underlaw because when you love people,
you will not cause harm to them thatthe law used to tell us not to do.
You are gonna know not to murder people.
You are gonna know not tolie and cheat and steal and
covet and envy and be immoral.
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None of it.
We don't need the law.
It's not saying there's no use forit, but I'm saying we're not under
the old law like that anymore.
We are under the new, andwith the spirit now in us,
(46:13):
we're free, free.
Every once in a while I'moverwhelmed by a feeling of freedom.
It's when I can look at my past and I justsmile because it makes today really good.
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Because I get excited to share.
It's like, can I justtell you who I used to be?
'cause wow,
if it can happen to me,it can happen to you.
And it's really, really easy.
Just believe.
Just say, God, thank you.
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I want more.
Really, that's it.
And that baptism.
That's why I'm so excited to dothis today, because without today,
baptism, there'd be no point.
It is just saying yes, God, yes.
I want what you gave me.
I am taking it as mine.
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I want to be your daughter,and I want to be your son.
I wanna be your daughter.
It's all you need to do.
You don't have to clean up, you know,like I said, sharing your story.
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You don't have to cleanup before you come to God.
You don't have to have itall right now figured out.
And it's why I don't make you sit throughclasses here, because I know my God and I
know what he's capable of in his spirit.
He just asked you for a sinceredesire to follow him and to know more.
He didn't say, once you knoweverything, then you can come.
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And that saddens me that somepeople feel like they need to
know more before they can come.
You don't.
You don't.
The one on the cross next toJesus, didn't know him at all.
Didn't live a day of his life following.
Jesus, didn't love him even once ever.
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He did nothing to deservewhat Jesus gave him.
Nothing in.
What did Jesus give him as he'sdying, both Jesus and the one
next to him, two dying men.
But one is also God and as this otherone is dying on the cross, having
never done anything to earn a bitof it, didn't do any of it right?
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Never attended church, didn't goto catechism, didn't do any of it.
Jesus says, I love you and I forgiveyou, and today you're going to heaven.
Can you imagine what that meantto that man in that moment?
It is in the Bible, so weunderstand that we don't earn it.
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It is given.
We just have to say yes.
But once you say yes, you needto have it be real in your life.
You need to live it.
We've been given everything, everything.
Where is the joy?
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Do you get excited thinkingabout it because you should.
You really should.
I can get excited andjoyful on my worst day.
'cause man, I know who my dad is.
He is awesome and I want you to know him.
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I want you to know Jesus as he truly is.
Love and acceptance andforgiveness and grace and mercy.
He is everything that we arenot he ising that I am not.
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He's my everything.
The reason for the decisionsI make and for what I do.
I was not prepared for the joy thatcomes with that, and it overwhelms me.
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It's why I pray over this place andeverybody that comes here so often,
Friday nights when it's filled, I'm justpraying that the spirit is present, that
people are found in their brokenness.
That in their hurt and their pain andtheir loss and their grief and their shame
and their guilt and their addictions andanger and frustrations and loneliness
(51:11):
and depression, that all of it's removed.
It just filled with you.
God,
it's my prayer for all of you today.
Whatever you came in that'sheavy and burdens you, I pray
over you that it's left here.
That you leave here feeling solight and yet so full of light and
(51:34):
love knowing how precious you are,
because Easter
made it possible.
The penalty was the cross.
(51:55):
And he paid that.
We deserve death.
And it's why he stayedthree days in a grave.
He was really dead.
The body was dead.
He didn't just kind of fall asleep.
'cause you know, it'skind of rough up here.
He was dead and he reallydid come out of that grave.
(52:23):
And that requires faith tobelieve that because everything
we believe is hinged on that.
Because if he didn't come out ofthat grave, he didn't defeat death.
And the only reason we aren'theading towards death is
because the grave is empty.
(52:47):
This day means everything to me.
Because it means I'm not gonna die.
It means that when this body drawsits last, I am gonna be filled
with all things heaven.
(53:09):
That means I'm never gonna die.
This body might.
I honestly have absolutelyno fear of dying.
I'm not in a hurry too.
I'm not eagerly praying for it.
They, you know, sometimes we'relike, oh God, things are so bad here.
Hurry up and come right nowand just bring us all up there.
(53:31):
But I'm like, but wait, because there'sso many people that don't know you.
So don't be so quick to say, I wantyou to come right now 'cause I'm
sick of living in this wicked world.
Love people enough to say,God, give me a minute.
'cause there's peoplethat need to know you.
'cause I want all of you there.
And God's big enough for that.
(53:52):
It's why he's patient.
God's so patient.
People just need to know andunderstand that this is real
and not everybody will.
But it doesn't changethat it's real for us.
(54:14):
Oh, thank you, God.
We are going to sing a songnow, and we're gonna transition
into preparing for baptism.
(54:38):
Because he hears and he answers
Matthew three, seven through 12.
When John realized that a lot ofPharisees and Sadducees were showing up
(54:59):
for a baptismal experience because itwas becoming the popular thing to do.
He exploded Broods of snakes.
What do you think you're doingSlithering down here to the river.
Do you think a little water on your snakeskins is going to make any difference?
(55:20):
It's your life that must change.
Not your skin and don't think you canpull rank by claiming Abraham as father.
Being a descendant of Abrahamis neither here nor there.
Descendants of Abraham are a dime a dozen.
What counts as your life?
(55:41):
Is it green in flourishing?
Because if it's Deadwood.
It goes on the fire.
I'm baptizing you here inthe river, turning your old
life in for a kingdom life.
The real action comes next.
The main character in this drama comparedto him I'm a mere stage hand, will
(56:05):
ignite the kingdom life within you, Afire within you, the Holy Spirit within
you, changing you from the inside out.
He's going to clean house, makea clean sweep of your lives.
He'll place everything true inits proper place before God.
(56:27):
Everything false he'll put outwith the trash to be burned.
And in the following verses, itdescribes that Jesus himself went
to John the Baptist, Jesus himself.
The only perfect human to ever walkthe planet was baptized himself, and
(56:50):
it's why we practice baptism now.
Jesus set the example.
Salvation does not come through baptism.
It is simply a sign externally andvisible to those around that says,
I am stepping into a new calling.
I am calling.
On God it to place a claim on my lifeand I am surrendering my life to God.
(57:16):
It symbolizes God saying,child, it's washed away.
It is finished.
That's what it is.
It is a symbol, and I getso excited to do baptism.
So I am glad that we are here today and Iam so thankful that we have individuals.
(57:36):
Choosing baptism.
So my dear girl, if you are ready,it would be my utter privilege
and honor to have you come up,
bring my towel.
You are welcome to andI'll take care of it.
(58:03):
Hello, friend.
Hello.
Hi.
The Fenwick Watermelon Pool.
This is how we do it here, so.
(58:26):
Oh, that's cold.
Amanda, is there anythingthat you would like to share
or say before we baptize you?
What brings you here?
What brought you to this decision?
Um, not really.
I just, um.
It's a, it's a personal thing for me.
(58:47):
For a long time I've been wanting todo this, but everybody in my life was
always really critical of people whoare, you know, have faith, not here.
So, and now I'm with somebody who is verystrong and very encouraging and none that.
Yeah.
Woo hoo.
Yay.
(59:11):
He allows me to explore my faithwithout criticism as it should be.
And, um, there is, so I've been wantingto do this for a really long time.
I just, um, I never, I've never hadthe opportunity and so I surrendered
my life and my soul to God and myheart to God, and I accept him as.
(59:32):
Everything.
Mm, everything.
So what I hear you saying isthat you believe God and you
believe in Jesus as your savior.
Absolutely, yes, Amanda, and I'msorry, it's a little chilly sometimes.
Baptism is chilly.
Amanda, better than ever,
(59:53):
precious daughter of Gad.
Join air with Jesus.
Your confession and your faith iseternal life through Jesus, and it
is my utter privilege to baptizeyou in the name of the Father and
of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
(01:00:13):
Yes.
You.
Oh, it was cold.
I know.
I know.
It.
Ugh.
Welcome to this big, crazy family.
It's amazing.
Yay.
It's a pleasure.
Thank you.
(01:00:34):
Thank you.
Thank you.
Ugh, I'm gonna drip all of, I don't care.
Oh, Doug, say them for me daily.
Perfect.
Thank you.
Thank you.
All right, Nick.
(01:01:00):
Uh, uh, Marley.
Pardon?
Water first.
You can, you can handle it.
You can handle it.
Oh, Marley up.
Come here.
Oh, she, she's trying to go in with you.
You wanna get baptized too.
Marley wanted to get baptized.
There we go.
(01:01:20):
Can she explain us why
We've been talking about it, butI'm not getting much from her.
So, Nick, what puts you in this chairin this watermelon pool here today?
What does this mean to you?
This means the steppinga new path in mm-hmm.
(01:01:43):
My life and.
You know, I've been baptized before,but my heart wasn't fully committed, you
know, and this right here is my, myself,my commitment to God and to come to the
light and, you know, do better in my life.
And, you know, I have, feel like Ihad a calling to do and keep doing
(01:02:06):
what I'm doing with outreach and,you know, and set the example or set
the tone for different people and.
This right here is my,my Path to my new Life.
Thank you, Nick.
Nick, I have seen you grow sincethe first day that I met you.
(01:02:28):
I believe God has a calling on your life.
He's just waiting for you to say,yes, I'm yours, and I'm all in, and
he has greatness waiting for you.
I pray.
Blessings over you.
I pray healing over everythingthat needs to be healed, and I pray
that anything that needs to be leftis washed away with this water.
Amen.
(01:02:48):
When you step out of this, youwill be a new man in, in God.
Do you believe that Jesus lovesyou and died for you and saved
you for sin for all eternity?
Yes, I do.
Nick, it is my honor to baptizeyou in the name of the Father.
And of the son and of the Holy Spirit.
(01:03:11):
Love you.
(01:03:50):
The master pool.
That's bold.
Holy boldness.
Yes.
That's, Robert wantedit and it didn't fit.
That's what that, that.
Carol, I'm only eight minutes fromhere, so I'm okay with having this.
(01:04:13):
Are you okay?
Yep.
All right.
It'll dry and you don't soft completely
There you.
You can get in the watermelon pool.
Oh, there's not even matter in there.
(01:04:33):
I never envisioned baptismshappening in an inflatable watermelon
pool, but my God can do anything.
Anything.
Carol, it is such a joyto me to get to know you.
I love your story.
I love your heart.
I love the beautiful spiritthat God has created in you.
(01:04:57):
Would you like to share?
I would.
Thanks.
Like Nick, I was baptized earlierin life, like the year that I
graduated high school, but it wasn'tuntil four years after high school.
I was such an insecure person thatsomebody invested in me and I,
it's like heaven opened and I knewthat it was him that did the work.
(01:05:19):
Mm-hmm.
Before then, I came from a familythat you'd be socially good.
They sent us to church.
And as a little girl,I, the seed was planted.
I said yes to Jesus.
Mm-hmm.
I couldn't tell you what, how old I was.
Mm-hmm.
But then our parents didn't go tochurch, so we all stopped going.
But in 11th grade I knew somethingwas not right with my life.
(01:05:40):
So, but still I wastrying to do it on my own.
Something was not right.
But then four years after high school,I knew that, I knew that I knew
and it's like heaven opened and so.
I put on, like you said, I buckled up.
Stuff happened and my dad died right away.
My brother three months after, but still.
Um, and then later on in life abump came where I didn't trust God.
(01:06:04):
And so I picked up the familyhabit of drinking and that was
like the biggest shame in my life.
Mm-hmm.
It's like the last thing as aChristian you would do, but uh,
that's where God met me exactly as Iwas and that was another beautiful.
Um, uh, confirmation that he lovesme and he understands me, and he
(01:06:25):
understood my family, who all, um,down that path and passed away.
So, um, I wanted to rededicate and likeI said, I did not know him like I know
him now back when I was first baptized,and this is the second time that I felt
like I really want to do it because.
(01:06:45):
I know that I know now and Iunderstand the real reason behind
it, so, oh, this is beautiful.
Carol, I pray.
I pray blessings over your life.
I pray God answers everyquestion on your mind and in your
searching and in your longing.
He has a beautiful calling onyour life and he loves you.
(01:07:07):
So much precious daughter, doyou believe Jesus loves you?
He died for you, and you havea resurrected eternity of
life with God waiting for you?
Yes,
Carol.
I am honored to re baptize youagain in the name of the Father.
And of the sun and of the Holy Spirit.
(01:07:32):
It's cool.
I know.
Thank you.
Take it down.
Thank you.
You too.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you for being here so much.
I.
My pleasure.
It's my pleasure.
(01:08:12):
I have endless supplies of water.
If anyone, anyone at all, has the desireto be baptized today, there is time
or just talk to me anytime and it willbe my pleasure to make that happen.
So
(01:08:34):
yes, wonderful.
My heart is full.
We're just gonna close with onebrief song and I'm just gonna then
pray a blessing and then we've gotsome fun waiting and some food.
Great kiddos.
Yes, well fun for all.
(01:08:55):
I enjoy watching kiddos having fun.
So
thank you for being here today, everybody.
Thank you.
(01:09:18):
Bless you and keep you
Father,
thank you.
I don't even know what else to say today.
Thank you.
(01:09:39):
I thank you for everyonewho is in this space today.
Father, I'm in the presence of the church.
Your spirit is here, and you are as alivetoday as anything I've ever experienced.
I pray blessings on everybody here.
I pray peace.
I pray healing.
(01:10:01):
Father God, I pray that all heartsare turned to you, that they can
experience and receive the joythat's just right there waiting
for them where healing is needed.
Father, I pray that happens now.
I pray that anything that needsto be left is left and not
(01:10:22):
taken back when they leave here.
I pray blessings over everybody here.
I pray a week lived in serviceto you because that is where all
joy and all goodness is found.
Father, I pray that you bless theremainder of this day, blessed time
that we're gonna spend together.
Let's have some fun.
(01:10:42):
Let's fill our bellies.
And we are so grateful to you that we canbe here today because that tomb is empty.
Thank you for the work that was done.
Thank you.
Above all that it was done becauseyou love us that much in May.
(01:11:05):
We never, ever forget.
That.
That's how you see us.
May we leave here feeling nothingbut loved by you, father God, help
us to walk boldly in the life andcalling that you have before us.
Just thank you in your son's name.
(01:11:27):
Father, I pray, thank you for everything.
Amen.
Amen.
Happy Easter every time.
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